


Another Failed Cycle

by TallyAce



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Genre: Angst, Gen, It's Majora's Mask, Time Loop, of course it's going to be angst centered around time travel, time travel angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallyAce/pseuds/TallyAce
Summary: Time was malleable, a useless substance that could be bent and twisted by anyone who desired to. Where he stood now—with the hatred of the gods bearing down on him from above and the fear of the mortals shaking him from below—it was a product of time. He bent time to suit his whims, and he landed in an endless cycle, a loop.He had to wonder what would’ve happened if he had never messed with time in the first place.(In the final hours of a failed cycle, Link occupies his mind with what-ifs.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Another Failed Cycle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NarshTaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarshTaters/gifts).



> This is a quick birthday gift for the lovely Narsh! I'll be all sappy in the end notes haha.

The sky was beautiful. Wispy fog danced lazily across the vast ocean of stars, swirling vibrant hues into the dark canvas. Purples and pinks and oranges and reds, mixed together like watercolors on expensive parchment, the type that only adorned the halls of royalty. It was otherworldly, a sight near unimaginable. 

It was the perfect sky for a festival. 

“So, time to rewind again, huh?” 

The world shook violently, and Link couldn’t help but let out a small sigh. When had he started acting like the townsfolk, ignoring the haunting face of the moon inching closer and closer with each passing minute in favor of stargazing? He couldn’t remember. Everything was so … repetitive, it became hard to even tell the cycles apart. 

Had he taken the boat tour on the fifty-sixth cycle, or had it been the fifty-seventh? Did he reunite the frog choir five cycles ago, or twelve? Maybe he had done it more than once, just to give himself a small break from the twisting and turning of the Stone Tower. Some things were burned into his memory, the constant ticking of the clock, the scream of the Skull Kid, the laugh of the Mask Salesman. Other things bled together, until he repeated the days almost action for action, not realizing he wasn’t progressing for far too long. 

He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the wooden railing and resting his cheek in the crook of his elbow. He’d failed again, let the sands of time slip through his grasp and into the endless abyss. It was to be expected, and he wasn’t as disappointed or as shocked as he would’ve been at the start of it all. He hadn’t memorized the patterns, hadn’t fallen into place with the schedule already set in stone, and he’d been too slow. 

Kafei went into the hideout alone, all because Link was behind in schedule. He had tried to do too many things at once, tried to save himself a cycle or two, yet he’d only created more for himself. 

“...Come on, Link, we don’t have all day.” 

The Stock Pot Inn was almost completely empty, and yet Link hadn’t been able to bring himself to go inside. If he went inside, he would have to see Anju, sitting beside her beautiful dress and waiting for the groom that Link had left behind. So he took to standing on the roof of the Milk Bar, the prized ‘lookout’ of the bomber kids, but they had abandoned it long ago. 

So it was his for at least for another two hours, ten minutes, and thirty-two seconds. 

He let his eyes flutter shut, the ringing of the clock tower growing louder, more frantic. It had terrified him the first time he had heard the echoing chimes, the sound ringing through the entire land like a scream through an empty cave. Who was behind the chimes? Link could only wonder. They couldn’t be automated, not with the way the gaps between the chimes shortened the more the moon dropped. A chime a second became a chime every half second, the ringing pattern that normally lasted for five seconds before stopping became an endless sound that lasted for nearly an hour. 

But the chimes hadn’t reached that point, not yet. 

“Link!” 

He snapped his eyelids open as Tatl slammed into his side, yet he didn’t move from his spot. Seemingly unsatisfied with his response—or lack thereof—Tatl huffed, buzzing up to his face so she was just inches from his eyes. She was bright, probably one of the brightest fairies that Link had ever met, but even so he didn’t squint, didn’t recoil from her light. 

“What are you doing?” She barked out, voice shrill despite her best efforts to sound gruff and irritated. “We can lounge around when the moon  _ isn’t  _ thirty seconds from killing us.” 

Link didn’t immediately respond, shifting his attention back up to the sky. They still had over two hours, so he wasn’t sure why Tatl was being so pushy all of a sudden. She knew the patterns just as well as he did, knew the exact time just as he did. 

In lieu of a response he shrugged, leaning even more forward to let most of his weight rest on the railing. He’d only ever waited a full day out once, and even then he’d chickened out before the clock struck zero. Seventy-one hours, fifty-five minutes, and forty seconds, that was the longest he had ever stuck around during a single cycle. 

It had been … terrifying. The panic of the people, the shaking of the very ground and sky, the beautiful sunset quickly bleeding into a crimson red, the non-stop chiming. It had been too much, and it’d taken him four cycles to recover. It took him even longer to not reset time after the end of the second day. 

But that had been long ago. A small part of him had wanted to know what would happen if he let the moon crash all those cycles ago, and now an even bigger part of him wanted to see it happen. 

The only thing stopping him was the nagging voice in the back of his head, the one that shouted at him for even considering condemning Termina to such a terrible fate. What if he couldn’t play the song quick enough, and he was wrapped up in the destruction? He would die alongside the kingdom he had been fighting tirelessly to save. Everything he would’ve done up until that point would’ve been erased, and he would have failed. 

He would’ve failed the people he had grown to know better than himself. The postman, the Mayor, Kafei and Anju, the Bomber Kids, Tatl, Tingle, Romani… Those people didn’t deserve a fate like that, didn’t deserve to be wrapped up in the twisted games of a lost little kid. So he continued onward, resetting the clock to keep them alive. To keep the land whole and its people safe. 

At least, those were the words he fed himself, to try to reassure himself that he was still courageous, that he was acting and fighting out of the goodness of his heart and desire to help. Because the truth was, he’d stopped fighting for those reasons long ago. 

He was scared, and he just wanted to live. He fought for himself, his actions bathed in selfishness and cowardice. 

Tatl continued to stare at Link for a while, but when the boy remained as silent as a stone she caved in. Slowly fluttering up, she tucked herself under the band of his silly little hat, letting her wings rest as she nestled into his dirty hair. 

“You need a bath.” 

Link hummed, tracing the patterns on the railing without taking his eyes off the moon. 

The loud, bell-like chimes of Tatl helped to drown out the booming of the clock. All fairies had some sort of chime, a sound that betrayed their emotions. Most fairies had a soft sound, like Saria’s fairy or Tael. But Tatl had a loud chime, one that sounded as if someone had dropped an old bell right at Link’s feet. 

She had a loud, annoying chime like Navi. 

...It suited her. 

“Hey, Link?” Tatl’s voice was a whisper, nearly unheard over the rumble of the world. 

“Hmm?” 

“Do you … do you think we’re close? To ending all of this, I mean.”

Pulling himself up enough to kick his feet slightly, Link let them sit in silence for a bit. He honestly wasn’t sure. At any time they could confront Skull Kid, they had the full Oath to Order, afterall. It would be as simple as resetting the cycle, getting the deed to the Clock Town flower, and waiting for midnight to strike on the eve of the third day. 

They could’ve been done ages ago.

...And yet they weren’t ready, they still had things to do, people to help. 

Seven masks to go until they had them all, that was what the Mask Salesman had said. Two great fairies still broken apart, that was what the Mask Salesman had said. A shattered heart of an unfortunate child, the pieces were still scattered across the land for him to collect, that was what the Mask Salesman had said. 

Link could only wonder how much the man knew, how much he hid behind a mask. He’d stopped calling the man ‘Happy’ long ago, because the man never had been, Link could tell. He knew of the cycles, and yet he said nothing about them. He said nothing about the time Link had broken down, sobbing in the corner as he tried to compose himself for the dawn of the first day. He said nothing about the pain of the spirits trapped within the masks, brushing their suffering aside almost instantly. 

He only spoke in masks, so Link had given up on speaking to him long ago. 

“...I don’t know,” he eventually whispered, voice rough from disuse. His throat was dry, and he could only wonder when the last time he had anything to drink or eat was. It had been a while, before the start of his current cycle for sure. He’d just been so busy, trying to balance his tasks, jotting down sloppy notes in his bomber’s notebook. It was falling apart at the seams, but he could always get an identical one if he ever needed it. 

Tatl shifted in his hair, pulling on the strands gently as she wriggled into a more comfortable position. “What do you think is going to happen when we confront Skull Kid next time?” 

_ Will we be able to stop a moon from crashing into the ground? _ That was the unspoken question, a question that neither of them were brave enough to voice. Link wasn’t exactly sure how the four giants could help them, why learning the fragments of their songs had been vital to his journey. Could the giants stop a celestial? 

Again Link shrugged, dropping down to stand on the roof and let his weight shift back to his feet. He didn’t know, but that song was their only shot at stopping the cycles. It was his only chance of ending his journey. 

“Are you going to stay for the carnival?” 

Tatl’s question made Link’s ears rise a bit, his eyes widening. He couldn’t look at her, not while she was lying on his head, but he looked upwards regardless. He tilted his head to the side, careful not to do it too fast and throw off Tatl’s balance. 

She cued into his silent question quickly, letting out a loud ringing sigh. “After we fix all this, are you going to stay here, with me and Tael? We could all go to the carnival together…” 

The chimes of the clock grew louder, faster. They drowned out the silence that followed Tatl’s words. Link pursed his lips, expression dropping as he buried his face in his arms once again. 

Time was malleable, a useless substance that could be bent and twisted by anyone who desired to. Where he stood now, with the hatred of the gods bearing down on him from above and the fear of the mortals shaking him from below, it was a product of time. He bent time to suit his whims, and he landed in an endless cycle, a loop. 

He had to wonder what would’ve happened if he had never messed with time in the first place. If he had never drawn the sword, never opened the Sacred Realm and doomed Hyrule to years of destruction. If he had never traveled back to his childhood to stop power from consuming all. If he had died before he could save the few who still lived. 

He also had to wonder what happened to those times. 

What happened to the destroyed Hyrule he left behind, a ruined kingdom filled with monsters and the broken remains of hope? What happened to the land of peace unaware of the rising power in the hands of the desert? What happened to his blood soaked corpse, and the land left without a hero? 

For all he messed with time, Link had no idea how it worked. 

“Maybe,” he eventually whispered. He wasn’t even sure Tatl had been able to hear him over the chaos of the town, but he wasn’t about to repeat himself. 

Maybe in one time he could stick around, find comfort with Tatl and her brother. Maybe he could enjoy the festival, get to know everyone past their three day schedule, get to see the world expand past the cycles. 

Maybe in another time he could forget the pain laced into every square inch of Termina, forget how many grains of sand filled the Great Bay, forget the feel of his body twisting and breaking into new forms. Maybe he could forget how the unfamiliar, scary feel of his wooden face or his webbed hands or his rocky back grew more familiar than his own skin sometimes. 

“I’d like that,” Tatl murmured, ducking lower into Link’s hat to hide herself from the bleeding sky. 

Even with his ‘maybe,’ even with the thought of settling back down with his new friends, Link couldn’t see himself being happy in Termina. The world would forget him and everything he had done to save it, just as Hyrule had. 

Anju and Kafei wouldn’t recognize him as the child who tried to help reunite them, he would be some stranger. Tingle wouldn’t remember selling Link his maps, striking odd conversations to ease Link’s fear. The frog choir wouldn’t remember him, and they would remain scattered across the land unless he decided to reunite them one last time. 

The only one who would remember would be Tatl. 

He laced his fingers together, squeezing his hands as he let his eyes slide closed once more. Tatl had her brother, and he would only be intruding if he stuck around. Besides, he had a friend to find, and he wouldn’t be able to find her stuck in Termina. 

The ocarina grew heavier and heavier in his pocket as the minutes passed by, yet Link resisted the urge to grab it. They had one hour, thirty-six minutes, and eleven seconds left, he could wait to play it. 

He could wait, he had the time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Narsh! Sorry this might seem a little rushed, I've been sick for a while but I was able to power through it for this little fic. 
> 
> This might seem really sappy, but you have really helped me come out of my shell a lot on the LU server. I've been on the server for nearly a year, but I only started talking and joining in conversations thanks to the Live-Drawing channel. I remember being bored one day, scrolling through Discord and seeing you streaming. Mae was the only other person in the channel at the time, and you were working on your Majora's Mask piece that I still fawn over to this very day. Joining that channel and chatting with you has really helped me overcome a lot of my anxiety in a strange way. 
> 
> You've really made the Live-Drawing channel a nice place for people to gather, encouraging other artists to join you with streaming and paving the way for new friendships to be formed. The little channel with just a handful of people has really grown into something big, something welcoming, and you played a big part in that. I've seen so many new faces, talked to so many new people, just because you extended a hand out towards anyone who joined the chat and welcomed them in. 
> 
> <3 <3 <3 So thank you, and happy birthday! (You're still baby tho)


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